Strategies

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African American research in Virginia can be divided into two general time periods - before and after the Civil War.

This Wiki page describes research strategies, and major sources of information about African American families from Virginia. As you read this Wiki page, also study the African American Research Wiki pages, which will help you understand more strategies, and the contents and uses of other African American genealogical records.

Genetic Testing

Many African Americans alive today are having their DNA tested to learn which tribes in Africa they descend from. To learn more about this procedure, read Hiring a DNA Testing Company.

History

The first slaves were imported into Virginia in 1619. Slaves were emancipated in 1865. The Official Tourism Website of the Commonwealth of Virginia has prepared a nice history of African-Americans in Virginia.

Immigration

Most black slaves were imported into Virginia in the 100 year period between 1676 and 1776, though they were present as early as 1619. Slaves began to outnumber the white indentured servant workforce in the late 1600s. The majority were brought into the colony from Africa and the Caribbean. In particular, the African regions of the Bight of Biafra (modern Nigeria), Senegambia (modern Senegal and Gambia), West Central Africa (modern Angola and Congo), and the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) were hotspots for Virginia slave traders. Smaller numbers came from the Windward Coast (modern Ivory Coast), Sierra Leone, Bight of Benin (modern Togo and Benin), and Southeast Africa (modern Madagascar and Mozambique) according to surviving shipping registers.[2]

There was a strong Muslim presence in Senegambia during the period of the slave trade. Many Tidewater Virginia slaves must have been influenced by Islam before their arrival in America.[3] Slaves were usually renamed once they arrived in English-speaking colonies. They were given English Christian names to replace names from their native languages (some of which were Muslim names like Mohammad).[4]

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database Internet site contains references to 35,000 slave voyages, including over 67,000 Africans aboard slave ships, using first name, age, gender, origin, and place of embarkation. The database documents the slave trade between Africa, Europe, Brazil, the Caribbean, and what is now the United States.

Virginia headright grants identify some slave importations into the colony, see Virginia Immigration for further information about this source.

Records of Slaves

The 1850 and 1860 slave schedules are available on Ancestry.com ($) and FamilySearch.org (free). They identify genders and ages of slaves owned by each master. Earlier census records statistically identify slaves in their masters' households (and free people of color) by approximate age and gender. For a breakdown of the content of the records, see articles on the 1840, 1830, 1820, 1810, 1800, and 1790 censuses.

Black slaves are often listed as property in their masters' deeds, wills, and probate inventories.

White slave masters who belonged to the Quaker and Methodist faiths often set their slaves free in the 1700s and 1800s.[5] Paul Heinegg prepared a detailed list of Virginia slaves manumitted (freed) between 1782 and the 1820s.

The Library of Virginia has a collection titled Public claims, slaves and free blacks, 1781-1865. The collection contains tax records for free blacks and slaves, records of condemned blacks who were executed or transported out of state, and records of runaway slaves who were caught and whose owners could not be found. The runaway slaves became the property of the state and were sold to new owners. Copies are available on microfilm at the Family History Library: FHL Films 2027937-2027942.

African American Families Database online The Central Virginia History Researchers (CVHR) has now released the African-American Families Database online. The first stage of this website provides a template for researchers trying to locate specific African- Americans who lived between circa 1850 and 1880. This period is particularly challenging for African-American family research because of the difficulty in relating ante-bellum and post-bellum records. The two plantations on which the website currently focuses are Hydraulic Plantation (5 miles north of Charlottesville, Va.), and the Bleak House Plantation (9 miles northwest of Charlottesville Va.).The site contains information on the plantations and information on the enslaved people living on these two plantations. The site also contains a blog focusing on the activities of the CVHR group, and details about the Database project.

Runaway Slaves

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Names of hundreds of runaway slaves, their descriptions, owners, and ages appeared in newspapers. They have been published and can be found in:

Many eighteenth-century runaway slave advertisements were published in the Virginia Gazette. Indexed images of the Virginia Gazette(1736-1780) are available online through the Colonial Williamsburg website. (Browse for terms such as "slaves.") Professor Tom Costa and The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia have indexed all the runaway advertisements for slaves mentioned in this publication and other Virginia newspapers (1736-1803), see: The Geography of Slavery in Virginia. These newspapers are valuable resources for all Virginia regions.

Plantation Records

Virginia Plantation Records Occasionally, slaves are mentioned in plantation records. The Family History Library has several series of plantation records from the periods before and after the Civil War. These are listed in the Author/Title Search of the Family History Library Catalog under the STAMPP, KENNETH M. or in the Subject Search under PLANTATION LIFE - VIRGINIA or PLANTATION LIFE - SOUTHERN STATES. Records are available at:

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library: inventory, FHL Book 975 H2sm Ser. K; original records, films beginning with FHL Film 1844005. These records are from the Shirley plantation of the Carter family.

Personal Narratives

Voices from the Days of Slavery, made possible by the Library of Congress, includes free audio files of interviews with former slaves from Albemarle, Essex, Westmoreland counties and the cities of Norfolk and Petersburg.

Revolutionary War, 1776-1783

African Americans from Virginia served on both sides of the Revolutionary War. Many Virginia slaves ran away from their masters and joined British forces after a proclamation issued by Lord Dunmore in 1775. He promised freedom for this act, and 500 slaves promptly joined him, whom he organized into the Ethiopian Regiment.[7] Free people of color commonly served their companies as drummers, fifers, and pioneers.[8] Black "pioneers" would "Assist in Cleaning the Streets & Removing all Nuisances being thrown into the Streets."[9]

Early Migrations Out of Virginia

Black Loyalists during the Revolution resettled in British Canada after the War concluded.

In the early 1800s, approximately 500,000 Virginia slaves were forcibly moved to the Deep South.[2] Dorothy Williams Potter in Passports of Southeastern Pioneers 1770-1823 (FHL Book 975 W4p) identifies some white families that took slaves with them from Virginia to the territories that are now Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Missouri.

Legislation

Slavery Legislation. To learn about the laws that affected Virginia slaves, see:

Finkelman, Paul. State Slavery Statutes: Guide to the Microfiche Collection. Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1989. FHL Book 975 F23s. Pages 317-56 pertain to Virginia and cover the years 1789-1865. The advertisements are indexed. The records list the names of many slaves and slave owners.

Free People of Color

Not all blacks were slaves in Virginia before the Civil War. Virginia had the largest free black population in the United States.[12] Many black families had been free there since the 1600s. For each eight slaves in the state, there was one free person of color.[13] Some of the largest families had the surnames Cumbo, Driggers, and Goins. Many free people of color descended from black slave men who had children by white indentured servant women.[14] Others were manumitted.

70 years later, in 1860, many of these people's descendants appear to have continued to live in the same areas. Counties with more than 1500 free colored people were Accomack, Dinwiddie, Henrico, Nansemond, Norfolk, and Southampton.[1] The town of Petersburg in 1830 (Dinwiddie County) had 3440 white inhabitants, 2850 slaves, and 2032 free blacks, making the black population the majority.[16]

Records

Free people of color appear in the same Virginia sources as the white population. They had surnames, interacted with whites, Indians, slaves, and free blacks; bought and sold land, took out marriage licenses, left wills, baptized their children in the Church of England, owned slaves, paid taxes, and sued others in court.[17] Sometimes clerks specified their race, other times, they did not.

In the nineteenth century, it was not uncommon for free blacks to purchase their enslaved relatives (husbands, wives, children, parents) and maintain their status as slaves in efforts to keep the family intact (newly freed blacks in Virginia faced a discriminatory law (starting in 1806) requiring them to leave the state).[18]

Tax assessors often recorded more information about free blacks in Virginia than census enumerators. Pre-1850 censuses list only the head of household by name, whereas tax lists sometimes list all males over the age of 16 by name. In 1813, according to Paul Heinegg, "many counties (or divisions of a county) mistakenly counted free women of color over 16 as taxables." In addition, "some counties had either a separate list of 'Free Persons of Color' or 'Free Negroes and Mulattos' or a notation after the person's name to indicate their race. Generally these tax lists provide a better source of information than either the registers of free Negroes or the census records."[19] Heinegg abstracted free blacks identified in each Virginia county. His abstracts are available online.

Census takers between 1790 and 1860 distinguished between free blacks and black slaves. Heinegg prepared lists of "Other Free" Heads of Household in the 1810 Virginia Census (arranged by county) (arranged by name).

Starting in 1793, each Virginia county court kept a register of free negroes.[20] Documentation of a black person's freedom status protected them from being forced into slavery. On the other hand, it also restricted their ability to migrate within the state, requiring them to stay in the county where he or she was registered.[21] These registers may give the person's name, age, color, stature, marks and scars, and name the court of emancipation. Several of these registers are found at the Library of Virginia. The Family History Library has copies of some of these registers. They are usually found in the Family History Library Place Search under VIRGINIA, [COUNTY] - COURT RECORDS.

Migrations Out of Virginia

Many free African American families migrated from Virginia to Robeson County, North Carolina in the 1700s.[14] Virginia's free people of color are also now believed to have been the ancestors of Appalachia's Melungeon population.[22] An 1806 law required freed slaves to leave the state within twelve months of gaining their freedom. This stiff law was softened by subsequent laws in the 1820s and 30s.[23] Many free blacks from Virginia had resettled in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan between the 1840s and 1860s.[14]

1865 to the Present

During the period of segregation, African Americans appear in the same sources as white people, such as censuses (beginning in 1870), marriage registers (though there was often a separate register for "colored marriages"), birth certificates, death certificates, deeds, wills, military records, cemeteries and church records (though they were usually segregated churches and cemeteries), tax records,voter registrations,city directories (though they might appear at the back of the book) and newspapers (including ethnic African American newspapers). Unique records relating specifically to black Virginians include cohabitation records, Freedmen's Bank records, and African American biographies.

Records

Cohabitation Records are registers created when the former slaves legalized their marriages (they were not allowed to marry until 1866). The tradition during the period of slavery had been to "jump over the broomstick" as as a marriage ceremony.[24] This valuable genealogical data is being made available online through the Library of Virginia's Virginia Memory Collection (scroll to "Cohabitation Registers"). More about this source is also found on the Cohabitation Records Wiki page, and the Virginia Cohabitation Records Wiki page.

Freedman's Savings and Trust Company signature cards or registers may list the slave's former masters, birth date, birthplace, occupation, residences, death information, parents, children, spouse, or siblings. Virginia had three branches of this bank:

Lynchburg 1871

Norfolk 1871-1874

Richmond 1867-1874

The signature registers for these branches are listed in:

Freedman's Savings and Trust Company (Washington, DC) 1865-1874. Registers of Signatures of Depositors in Branches of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, 1865-1874. Washington, DC: National Archives, 1969. Digital version online; also on film: FHL Film 928591. In each city, depositors' names are arranged by account number.

Two valuable sources for the period after the Civil War are:

United States. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Records of the Superintendent of Education for the State of Virginia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1870. Washington, DC: National Archives, 1977. FHL Films 1549578-97. Most volumes are indexed.

United States. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Virginia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1869. Washington, DC: National Archives, 1988. FHL Films 1601562-628. There are several indexes.

Freedmen's Bureau Virginia Marriages ca. 1815-1866--Names of thousands of former slaves are included in these records. A free index can be viewed at FamilySearch Record Search. Records may include the name of the bride and groom, date of marriage registration, residence, previous marriages, names and ages of children.

Biographies of prominent Virginia African Americans have been published. For example, a list of blacks who held public office during Reconstruction is available in: Negro Office Holders in Virginia, 1865-1895, by Luther Porter Jackson. The Black History Committee of The Friends of the Thomas Balch Library prepared two volumes titled The Essence of a People: Portraits of African Americans Who Made a Difference in Loudoun County, Virginia (2001-2002). FHL Book 975.528 F2f.

Cemeteries

Large African American cemeteries in Virginia have included:

The African American Historic Cemeteries of Portsmouth VA on Facebook: A friend's group of descendants and volunteers of the African American Cemeteries of Portsmouth: The Mt. Calvary Cemetery Complex (est 1879), Lincoln Memorial Cemetery (est 1912), and Grove Baptist Church cemetery (est 1840)

African American Cemeteries of Tidewater Virginia on Facebook. A community forum for the African American cemeteries of Hampton Roads, Virginia. Included are burial sites located in Norfolk, Hampton, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News, and additional areas throughout the Tidewater region.

References

↑ 1.01.11.21.31.41.5 Includes modern-day West Virginia and part of the District of Columbia. Ninth Census of the United States: Statistics of Population, Tables I to VIII Inclusive (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1872), 70, 72. Digital version at Internet Archive; FHL Book 973 X2pcu; William O. Lynch, "The Westward Flow of Southern Colonists before 1861," The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Aug. 1943):325. Digital version at JSTOR ($).

↑ 14.014.114.2 The previous school of thought had the colors and genders swapped - it was believed that they descended from illegitimate offspring of white slave masters and black slave women. A 1662 law stated that the offspring of such relations would take the legal status of the mother. Most children resulting from illicit relations between white slave masters and black slave women remained in slavery. See Paul Heinegg, Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware,http://freeafricanamericans.com/, accessed 25 May 2012; and The Free Negro in Virginia, 19.